Indiana's township system dates back to Jefferson

After Britain ceded the 13 colonies and western territory following the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress tasked a committee led by Jefferson with surveying the new land. 

He wanted a mathematically based system as a way to make property available to small farmers, not just the wealthy. Generally, Indiana townships ended up measuring six miles by six miles.

All Indiana townships, one might say, start in Orange County in southern Indiana.

A historical marker denotes Pivot Point, the beginning of all legal descriptions for real estate in Indiana. The U.S. Public Lands Survey System set a north-south baseline called the Principal Meridian and an east-west line called the Baseline. 

They intersect south of Paoli in the Hoosier National Forest, said Bob Stone, civil engineering technician for the national forest. For example, the first spread of land northeast of the intersection is designated as Township 1 North, Range 1 East.

After some missteps, the township system helped establish the Northwest Territory, which would become Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota.

Governments serving townships arose in the Indiana Constitution of 1852. In those early days, townships provided relief for the poor, maintained roads and libraries, buried Civil War veterans, maintained cemeteries and provided for schools.

Today, townships have shed most of those responsibilities. They generally don't maintain roads, nor do they generally oversee schools or libraries.

Poor relief has been geared to townships since they were set up by the Ordinance of 1787 that created the Northwest Territory, according to a study by Sheila Suess Kennedy, a law professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

The territorial legislature established counties and townships, assigning them to be "overseers of the poor." In 1852, poor relief was expressly assigned to Indiana townships.

In 1895, trustees were required to report their activities. More than 70,000 people received poor relief, comprising more than 3 percent of the state's population of 2.2 million, Kennedy found.

In 1808, Lincoln’s father, Thomas, bought a 300-acre farm near present-day Hodgenville, Kentucky. About three months later, Abraham was born.

In 1811, Thomas Lincoln entered into a lawsuit over his ownership of the land. He was ordered to leave and moved to Knob Creek, Kentucky, while still fighting the order to vacate, which he lost in 1816.

“Anybody who called themselves a surveyor could come out and survey the land and use landmarks like trees and rocks,” said Stacy Humphreys, chief of interpretation and resource management for the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

That December, the Lincolns moved to Spencer County, Indiana, to a site that would become known as Lincoln’s boyhood home. Unlike Kentucky, Indiana’s land survey had the backing of the federal government.

“Somebody can’t come along later and say, 'Oh, no, that’s my piece of property, too,' like they could in Kentucky,” Humphreys explained.

Kentucky did not then and does not now have a township form of government.